Curtis Perry, from Portland, OR., has been sharing a number of his great finds and photography at the Cohort, and we’ve seen several already. I’m going to do a little series of his on-the-road finds, starting with this weary Charger SE impersonating a Cordoba in front of an equally-weary old motel, in Ely, Nevada.
These shots are poignant for me, as I love rumbling around the less-populated areas of the West, northern Nevada being one of my favorites. Time moves much slower in these remote parts of the country, as there’s generally been little economic stimulus to change.
We’ve had the Cordoba here a number of times, but I’m not sure if this exact version of Dodge’s near-identical twin has. But it’s always welcome back here at CC, especially in such a fine setting.
CC 1978 Cordoba: The Fine Little Chrysler (PN)
CC 1976 Chrysler Cordoba: Fine Corinthian Brougham (Tom Klockau)
That’s not a Cordoba, it’s a Dodge Charger. Same car, different tail lights.
That is right, I noticed something looked off from the grille in the front. My grandmother had a 75 Cordoba in maroon with the 400 V8, bucket seats, and it was a nice fine driving car. I don’t think the louvered opera windows were available on the Chryslers either. If I am not mistaken, in 1975 the Dodge Charger was available in two versions, one with the Cordoba body and the other with the older Coronet body.
In 75 Charger was only the Cordoba body. Regular coupes were Coronets (1st 2dr Coronets since 1970).
In 1976 however, the Coronet coupes were moved to the Charger nameplate, Charger Coupe, and Charger Sport Coupe, while the Cordoba bodied Charger was Charger SE and Charger Daytona.
1977 & 78, the base coupes were all renamed Monaco (Big C-body Monacos were now ‘Royal Monaco’)
(and yes, it is a Charger, not a Cordoba)
I’d forgotten all about the 1975 Coronet 2-door. It was nothing more than a Plymouth Fury with a split grille and different badges. It also was yet more encroachment into Plymouth’s territory since Plymouth didn’t get a version of the Cordoba, but Dodge got the Cordoba-clone Charger, along with the Fury-clone Coronet.
I wonder if there were any plans to make a ’75 Super Bee off the Coronet 2-door. If the ’75 Road Runner had sold well, it would have been a repeat of 1968 when Dodge initially declined a version of the Road Runner, then had to play catch-up when the Road Runner was a surprise hit.
There was a mid year paint special Charger Daytona in 1975 and a 1/2, looked somewhat better than the Luxo Charger.
The Fury RR was a sales flop and the package moved to Volare’ the next year.
Yeah, and the Super Bee hadn’t been around since 1971, either, when it was moved to an option package on the Charger. Still, with the reintroduction of the 2-door Coronet in 1975 as a completely separate model from the Chardoba, you’d think someone at Dodge would have at least thought about resurrecting the Super Bee (and maybe even the Coronet R/T).
At least when the Road Runner moved to the Volaré in ’76, the Aspen got an R/T version but, thankfully, no Super Bee. It wouldn’t be another thirty years before another Super Bee would be offered on the 4-door Charger, long after the Road Runner had went away.
Ooops! This is what happens when Cohort posters misidentify their finds, and I don’t take the time to second guess, especially when I’m in a hurry. The strakes on the side rear window should have been the tip-off, but I thought perhaps they were optional on the Cordoba as part of some package.
Definitely a Charger. The taillights, opera window louvers and grille are the differences.
The 1975 Charger, or 4th gen, shared the Cordoba body and was the model that had the tacky side louvers on the rear side opera windows.
Those louvers were never an option on the Cordoba, since it was the luxury Chrysler version, and the Charger was the sportier(yeah right) Dodge version… Hence the racy louver treatment.
The Charger was no more than a rebadge, and a former shell of itself with this bland, watered down, smog-era Malaise version of the iconic name. Pathetic and unmemorable.
The worse car to carry the Charger name beside this model is the garbage FWD Omni based 024 derivative, Charger 2.2.
What piece of rubbish, my dad traded our reliable as a Swiss watch, 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger in on one of these, in the early Lee Iacocca 80’s… What a big mistake that was.
Chrysler must’ve really been desperate for a comeback, back then.
There’s nothing wrong with the 024’s in and of themselves. I agree ‘Charger’ was the wrong name for the car….was it any worse than applying it to a personal luxury barge, or a family sedan? How about the Mitsubishi built Challenger? In those days if you got a bad Mopar it was BAD…if it was a good one, then it was bulletproof. And as I said below, the Shelby Chargers were damn quick little cars for the times. Contemporary Mustang and F body owners were regularly embarrassed by those fwd 4 banger hatchbacks….when they were carrying a turbo, that is.
Not true, Mopar… Well, in a way
The 024, TC3s weren’t really known for durability, maybe luck of the draw someone got a rare reliable bird, but our 024 was used as my dad’s highway commuter, to and from Southeastern MA to Cambridge, Boston and Waltham.
In those 5 or so years, that car wasn’t as tight as it should be in only just 5 years??
Odd, because it was all highway miles on it.
While a comparable Toyota or Datsun of the time, still was pretty tight.
It squeaked a lot and it did that starter ERRRRRRR!! Which would wake us and the neighbors at 5am, like clockwork.
You think Chrysler would remedy this problem… No way, because my dad must be a glutton for punishment, as a true Mopar guy… He traded his Dodge 024, on a new 1985 Plymouth Horizon.
Again, same ERRRRRRR starter problem.
Funny because, I wanted to buy a black $500 86 Charger 2.2 off a mechanic friend, back in 1995… Guess what, the same ERRRRRRR.
Yes, some Mopars like the Slant 6 Darts/Valiants and some 318s, and 360s were great… But when Chrysler dove into the FWD realm in 1978, some of those cars were horror shows. Even CU rated the first Omni/Horizons Not Acceptable.
Though, the 2.2s got more reliable in the mid-later 80’s in the Aries, Reliants, and Le Barons/400s/600s.
I agree with you on the turbo Omni GLHs… They put alotta V8s to shame. I miss my Spirit R/T, it was a sleeper, other than the monochromatic paint and ground effects.
Starter problem? That’s not a problem, that’s the Hamtramck Hummingbird at full throat. I’ll admit that in a GM house, it was a little questionable. But, from Valiant to Imperial, that was the sound of a Product of the Chrysler Corporation.
As a high schooler carrying out groceries at a supermarket job, hot, late summer nights were punctuated by those ‘Birds,. It was fun to look around and find what Mopar was calling out for attention.
LOL
The Mopar mating call. 🙂
Sarcasmo,
I don’t doubt your experiences with your 024, but to be fair the “highways” that you refer to really don’t qualify as highways in the typical sense. If you’re referring to routes 128 and 93, these roads are hell on any car. Stop and go traffic, lousy road surfaces, and dodging the typical Boston drivers that will cut you off at 70 mph will beat the crap out of any car. Gridlock is awful in that area.
You sound like someone who knows, PBR. 🙂
Yep, that Boston+ commute is a pita… I don’t know how my dad did it for 26 years, working for Polaroid.
20+ of those years were to Waltham and Marlboro, while the earlier years were to Cambridge.
“Mustang and F body owners were regularly embarrassed…”
Umm, Mustang and F body owners still looked down on the Econo-box Omni Chargers. No way did they have any street cred, except by die hard “Mopar or no car” fan boys. These rattle traps will never, repeat, never be collectible cars.
compare the performance figures from a contemporary Shelby Charger vs Fox/F body. Collectability? Im sure the prices for any of these are on par in comparable condition.
In 1978, the Mitsubishi “Challenger” was still a better car than the Ford-built Mustang II. And there *was* a Hemi under the hood! (albeit a MCA silent-shaft 4-banger)
Those Mitsu-based Challengers (and their badge near-twin Sapporo) were actually good little sports coupes for the late 70’s/early 80’s. Challenger was perhaps a poor naming choice but they were head and shoulders above the 024 (which had nothing going for it except attracive-in-an-angular-80s-way styling).
Such great shots from Curtis – that last one with the clouds is stunning.
I never could understand the outrage over the modern four door Charger. Apparently in most people’s minds, the 70’s and 80’s Chargers never existed.
The 80s Chargers get a bad rap. In Shelby form, they were absolutely performance cars that for the times were more than competitive. The 70s Charger…not so much.
The outrage spawned as much from the fact that 4 doors aren’t accepted as ‘cool’ but also the fact that a sedan was Ma Mopar’s apparent answer to the Mustang and GTO that were available in those years. Once the Challenger dropped, THATS the car we really wanted and a lot of the backlash quieted down.
I think 4-door high performance cars are far more accepted today than they were in the ’60s and early ’70s. Sporty models like the Golf GTI or the BMW 3-series were once 2-door only, but now the 4-doors outsell the coupes. Other more recent performance cars like the Subaru WRX/STI, Mitsu Lancer Evo, and most Cadillac V Sport series had 4 doors from the outset. Cars like the ’90s Impala SS its eventual successor, the current SS sedan provided a template for big fast American-brand four-doors. In today’s climate, a four-door Charger fits right in, and anyone who must have two doors can buy the mechanically similar Challenger instead.
I think the original sedan Charger (06-10) was a design travesty, hearkened to nothing and just looked blocky and cheap, much like it’s compact imitator, the Avenger. The 11-current designs are much better, at least it actually mimics the classic design now
They made a show car that looked this a couple of years earlier. What the hell happened?
No, the full size LX Chager was not an “answer to Mustang and GTO”. It was a new full size RWD car replacing the Intrepid, and I couldnt care less that it has 4 doors. It’s from poor sales of big coupes that its a sedan, and economies of scale.
The late GTO had huge ungainly doors to try to be ‘sporty’, but ‘old car guys’ rejected it. the G8 was better balanced.
The ones complaining never buy new cars anyway. Don’t like 4 doors, oh well, it’s the modern world we live in. Even pickups have them now.
If anything, the ’75 SE is the “travesty”.
The GTO sold over 40K units in 3 model years. With all-or-nothing V8 models, no V6 sales drivers. And the styling would have been great 10 years earlier. No one knew it from a Grand Prix coupe. Hardly a failure, all things considered. You forget, that the GTO and G8 were both an Aussie Holden car federalized and imported here. It was a VERY expensive and inefficent way to do the cars. These cars would have done much better with the G8’s more contemporary styling applied to both, AND base level models with V6s. I cant find sales breakdowns of the modern muscle cars v6 vs hi po models…but base models FAR outsell the performance ones…but it takes both to round out the package and each makes the other possible.
Youre right, no one wants personal luxury coupes. But muscle cars sell. All 3 ponies are hot items. Sure, the Charger sells more than the Challenger, but you get a choice from Mopar. The Charger/300 will only steal sales of Mustangs/Camaros from people whose priorities dicate a 4 door. The Challenger was a ‘bringing home’ of Mopar muscle fans who had nowhere to go but Ford or GM, or a Dodge truck.
The people ‘complaining’ are potential customers. If theyre crying out for a 2 door V8 rwd car with style and performance, thats a totally grantable wish…and theyre selling. Those who want a brown, diesel manual trans station wagon….not so much.
So many people traded their fine 60’s darts valiants coronets for aspens and beyond
we know what they got! I don’t think that they had them very long I wonder if the
dealers were as surprised as the long time mopar fans that said “never again”
Odd thing was while the Cordoba flew off Chrysler lots, the Dodge stores couldn’t move the near identical Charger S.E.. The Charger was treated to a re-skin and a new name for the last 2 years of the platform run, creating the Magnum.
A re-skin might be a bit generous. A vaguely Cord inspired nose with a new name was about all it got. But, it was an ever so slightly more ambitious effort compared to the ’75 Chargedoba.
Something tells me that if they’d done the Magnum right from the start in ’75, things would have turned out differently. Lynn Townsend being penny wise and pound foolish. However, they still wouldn’t have had Ricardo Montalban.
BTW here’s the only one of this ilk that I would like to own, replete with stock appearing E58 360.
The Magnum nose did something to separate the Dodge from the Cordoba. The remainder of the car was still a Cordoba, with the why did they even bother ’75 Charger taillights.
Still, in EX trim, it was Dodge’s counterpoint to the ’79 Chrysler 300 variant of the Cordoba. I thought it was kind of a looker.
When I was a teen looking for my first car, a salesman from the nearby CP dealer pulled up in his two year old ’79 Magnum demo car to the store I was working at. Loaded, mint condition and low mileage, I talked his arm off about it. Too rich for my blood at the time. But, I wouldn’t have minded some time in this Mopar….
Did the Magnum also have new doors? These seem to pick up the bulges suggested by the ’76 Charger Daytona paint job.
I really like the ’79 300. The stacked rectangular lights introduced with the ’78 Cordoba facelift looked tacky and overly busy with the standard Brougham-y vertical-bar grille (which looked much better with the earlier single round lights and simpler fender blades it was born with on the ’75-’77), but the 300’s cross-hatch grille makes the stacked rectangular lights finally look right. The red/white/blue emblems, fender vents, and wheels/tires also look nice. I’d love to do a resto-moded 300 with a modern Mopar V8 and upgraded brakes, tires, and suspension bits. I think the resultant car would be a sportier, much more comfortable drive than anything based on a ’69 Charger – and probably much less expensive to buy.
One rare 300, who didn’t have a happy ending. 🙁
Gotta love how that advert describes the original 1955 300, “the most powerful production car on the road”, then sets you up for the new-and-improved special-edition sequel. Whereas the original ’55 was a hardtop coupe with a 300hp V8 and 2-speed automatic, the ’79 300 thanks to 24 years of progress and innovation was a hardtop coupe now with a 360cid V8 and 3-speed automatic. It’s carefully worded; they’re apparently hoping you won’t catch that it’s not 360 *hp*!
(For that matter, they’re also hoping you have a loose definition of “hardtop”)
I always liked the Magnum. The changes may not have been huge, but they were quite effective in going from this quasi-luxury monstrosity to something that at least gives the suggestion of sportiness.
Not really a surprise, persolux was all about image and the Cordoba had Image. If you said you drove a Charger in ’76 would people have thought of an aging ’69 or of the new Charger SE as a cut-price Cordoba?
Ah Ely, Nevada. The motel might be the one I stayed at with my parents as a teen as we travelled to Disneyland. The trip was made in my father’s 1970 Cutlass Supreme four door hardtop. 350 V8, 4bbl carb, single exhaust rated at 310 horsepower (gross). Fast car, ease up on the go pedal and it could get 20 mpg on the highway. The Cutlass did not have AC so at times cruising through Nevada and California was not pleasant.
I highly recommend travelling highway 93 from British Columbia into Idaho and down into Nevada. I have done it a couple of times with a travelling buddy. Love the scenery.
“Mulligan here Sarge. I’m at the motel, I can see them in room 4 with the scales”
Oh boy. The Brougham Charger. Never did like these things, probably never will. While this site has expanded my love for cars to include certain ones from the 1970s (which previously I screamed in terror at because I believed all 70s cars to be Malaise-mobiles), I’ve never been convinced on the merits of the Charger. The fact that the ’71-74 Charger is borderline with me over how much power it lost and weight it gained cements in my mind how terrible the ’75-78 Charger is. If Pontiac managed to keep the Firebird as a leading prospect in the 1970s, how is it that Chrysler said to themselves that the Cordoba game plan was perfectly acceptable for the Charger instead of chasing the Firebird or even going the Mustang II route? Sales would’ve been down due to the oil crisis, but they dropped even more once the Charger went soft. I know it’s cruel and terrible to say, but I just hope that the rust on the back of the car claims the rest so that it doesn’t have to continue carrying the shame bestowed upon it by Chrysler at its birth.
I agree, bad choice of names, what were they thinking? No wonder Mopar nearly died in 1979. If Lee Iacocca never got fired from Ford, they’d be like Studebaker-Packard.
Sure, Mopar made “fast cars” in the late 60’s, but it sure didn’t help the bottom line in long run, and they’ve had to be bailed out too may times to count.
Just as with Chrysler in 1979, there was quite a bit of government meddling trying to save Studebaker-Packard in 1956 (it was an election year, and the Eisenhower administration didn’t wan’t a huge insolvency of a prestigous company just before he had to face the voters). It obviously wasn’t enough.
Great shots of the “Old West,” circa 2015: a worn out steed tethered outside the bunkhouse, awaiting its last ride.
That´s one seriously perforated rear quarter panel…
Not a native Nevada car, methinks!
in the weeds
Great shot, Mike. I think that’s the related Plymouth Fury Salon, from the grille, hood ornament, and script C-pillar badge. Different body than the Chardoba, same platform.
That one’s a rare bird too. The Fury/Monaco/Coronet/whathaveyou coupes weren’t common at any point, but the ones after the stacked-quad facelift are especially light on the ground.
…The Charger was meant to be a luxury car like a Riviera or the Thunderbird…
Anyway, love this car. Thanks for acknowledging them. Had a ’76 Cordoba for 3 years and still sometimes miss it. I remember working on a ’77 Charger in my Dad’s autobody shop in high school. I wanted that car.
Funny how a mid ’70’s Monte Carlo is cool (NASCAR?), or a basket handle T-Bird, but these are considered a joke. I just gotta disagree. They all had similarly lackadaisical 400 engines stock that tuned up nicely with basic hot rod parts.
They’re all cool. Take your pick.
While never crazy about these ’75-’78 Chargers, they might have been an improvement over the basic ’74 Charger: one recalled was a metallic purple with black vinyl ‘brougham’ roof treatment, black-wall tires, dog-dish hubcaps and a good, old slant six under those long acres of hood sheetmetal.
Grandpa and Grandma were always Chrysler folks. I remember a 61 Newport, a 71 Newport (that was one huge beast, even as a 2-door!), then a 76 Charger SE. That was one sexy car! All done up in a Dove Grey exterior, red pinstripes, that bordello-red plush velour interior, and those faux-spoke chrome wheel covers! Say what you will about the Charger SE, and the Cordoba. I loved that design, until they went to the square stacked headlights. As a younger driver, back in the early-mid 90’s, I had 3 or 4 Cordobas. IIRC, all had the 400 4v. Not the fastest car around, to be sure, but the sound of that big Thermoquad when the loud-pedal was on the floorboard? Amazing! Sounded like it was about to suck the hood right into the engine! My buddies could hear me coming for blocks! I had one that had a leaking water pump. Broke as I was, I just kept adding coolant/water as needed. I remember one night in particular, when my then-wife took off somewhere after we had a verbal disagreement. I sat home for a bit, then decided to go looking for her. Totally forgot to add anything to the cooling system. Drove around until that 400 overheated, BADLY! Got home, shut her off. I have never heard an engine make the sounds that one did as she cooled. It was frightening! I figured it to be toast. Next morning, filled the cooling system, started the car, and it ran fine! Unbelievable! Drove that car for another year. Never did replace that water pump…..sold it for exactly what I paid for it 2 years before. Saw it running around town with it’s new owner for several more years. Wonder if he ever replaced the water pump?
This is a car I’ve rarely had any good feelings toward–I’m borderline on the Cordoba in any case, and this baroque contraption just seems like the deepest debasement of the Charger name.
The photos, however, are fantastic! Both the car and the motel have slowly slid down the economic ladder, paused just short of final oblivion. And that sky is the icing on the cake.
From what I read, there was supposed to be more differentiation with the Cordoba and the Charger but development dollars were slashed after the fiasco of the full-sized vehicle launch in 1974 that coincided with the OPEC embargo. Things did not get any better with the Volare/Aspen launch that had horrible quality issues. There was an attempt to do more in the late 70’s as the Magnum replaced the Charger, but these products were too bloated for the new era of CAFE mileage standards. A few years later these were shifted to the Volare platform which also had the Diplomat as a platform mate.
Many blame the domestics for not producing small cars, but when the demand changed so quickly, a four year development cycle didn’t allow for fast reactions and the Japanese who basically only made small cars had an easier time. And we have to remember that the eggheads running Detroit were raised on big cars and they had no clue as how to make smaller cars as good as we have them now.
Very well said.
I’m currently trying to sell a one-owner 78 Córdoba and recently appraised a one-owner 82 Córdoba. What a contrast in size, workmanship and driving manners. The 82 was located on a rural property so I drove it a little to get better pictures of the exterior.
It was a smart move to build on the Volare/Aspen platform. But sadly too late to help increase sales for Córdoba, Magnum.